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Case Reports
. 2011 Mar 25;3(1):68-73.
doi: 10.1159/000326941.

The First Human Case of Rickettsia tamurae Infection in Japan

Kaoru Imaoka  1 , Sakae Kaneko, Kenji Tabara, Kenji Kusatake, Eishin Morita
Affiliations
Case Reports

The First Human Case of Rickettsia tamurae Infection in Japan

Kaoru Imaoka et al. Case Rep Dermatol. .

Abstract

A case of Rickettsia tamurae infection in Japan is reported. A 76-year-old Japanese male had a tick bite which developed to local skin inflammation on his left leg. Anti-rickettsia antibodies were detected in his serum, and R. tamurae DNA was identified in his blood, the lesional skin, and the tick.

Keywords: Amblyomma testudinarium; Human pathogen; Local skin inflammation; Rickettsia tamurae infection; Spotted fever group.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Geographical position of Shimane in Japan. Star: location of the present case.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Erythema and mild swelling of the left sural area. There was a 15 mm-sized tick in the left popliteal region (a). The engorged tick, which was an Amblyomma testudinarium female, had attached itself to the patient's popliteal region (b).
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Phylogenetic tree of SFG rickettsiae derived from the gltA gene (a) and phylogenetic tree of SFG rickettsiae derived from the 17 kDa genus-common antigen gene (b) by the neighbor-joining method. The numbers at nodes are the bootstrap values obtained from 100 re-samplings. The scale bars represent 0.5% (glt-A gene) and 1% (17 kDa genus-common antigen gene) differences in nucleotide sequences (GenBank accession numbers are shown).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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